Trivia / The Ice Storm

• Acclaimed Flop: Grossed just $8 million domestically on an $18 million budget, but was named the best film of 1997 by Gene Siskel.
• California Doubling: Completely and utterly averted. The movie was filmed in exactly the same town it is set in: New Canaan, Connecticut.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Katie Holmes auditioned for the role of Wendy Hood, but was deemed too old for the part. She was instead cast as Libbets Casey.
• Contractual Purity: This, along with Buffalo '66 and The Opposite of Sex broke Christina Ricci out of her child star image.
• Creator-Preferred Adaptation: Rick Moody, the author of the novel was so pleased with the film he sobbed through the end credits.
• Dueling Works: Downplayed with American Beauty. Both are movies about adultery in wealthy suburbia, featuring both adulterous parents and hormone-addled teenage kids cheating in the same neighborhood before culminating in a tragic death, and came out two years apart (1997 vs 1999). However, because American Beauty was an enormous success, while The Ice Storm was a Box Office Bomb, most of the comparisons between them are retrospective.
• Method Acting: Ang Lee had the cast study magazine cutouts from The '70s to get them into the mindsets of the characters.
• Production Posse: Ang Lee and producers James Schamus and Ted Hope had made four other films together.
• Referenced by...: The Robot Chicken sketch "A Kingdom Hearts Key Party", in which Sigourney Weaver, declared a Disney Princess after Disney's acquisition of Searchlight Pictures, attends Xehanort's "Keyblade Party". While waiting for the other guests, she explains the basic concept of the party to a horrified Sora.
• Serendipity Writes the Plot: Kevin Kline was supposed to give Christina Ricci a piggyback ride in one scene, but due to his bad back it was changed.
• Those Two Actors: Tobey Maguire starred with Joan Allen in Pleasantville, Katie Holmes in Wonder Boys and Christina Ricci in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
• What Could Have Been: Natalie Portman turned down the role of Wendy Hood over the sexual content in the film. Christina Ricci later said this was one of many parts she got that Natalie had turned down. She claims they didn't want her at first, and her agent had to beg them to let her audition.

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